


you can be my punk rock princess

by kris_m



Category: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Nerd!Beca, Punk!Chloe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kris_m/pseuds/kris_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. By all accounts, Beca considers herself completely and utterly screwed. It isn't her fault Chloe was failing history, it isn't her fault no one else will help her out, and it certainly isn't her fault Chloe's eyes make her stomach do gymnastics. </p><p>Scratch that, she's gone well past screwed and well into completely and utterly fucked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can be my punk rock princess

**Author's Note:**

> Based entirely off of recent photos of Brittany and Anna at a recent party, I was inspired to write some form of AU. This might continue into several chapters, I haven't quite decided. This obviously diverges from canon in that the girls are in high school, Beca is considered a nerd and Chloe is considered a punk.

> _"If you could be my punk rock princess,_  
>  _I would be your garage band king._  
>  _You can tell me why you just don't fit in,_  
>  _And how you're gonna be something."_
> 
> _Punk Rock Princess - Something Corporate._
> 
> **

Beca doesn't think she's going to survive the coming days. Not when Mr. Wilson expects her to tutor Chloe because she's failing their American history class quite miserably. In another world, Beca thinks she might feel a little bad, or at least feel some sense of remorse at the refusal that passes her lips within seconds of the request. She cringes under Mr. Wilson's stare and relents almost immediately, her resolve crumbling almost as quickly as she'd built it, like the walls of Jericho to Joshua's trumpets. She's screwed. She's completely, utterly and soundly screwed. Her face screws up into something of a grimace and she forces a smile when Mr. Wilson pats her on the shoulder and promises she'll feel better about things when she meets with Chloe. Fat chance, really, considering she has made it a point to avoid Chloe Beale and her stupid ripped jeans, and her even stupider bright blue eyes. 

Beca's sitting in the library almost before she can recall having moved at all, and she prays - for one split second - that Chloe won't show up at all. That's her MO, after all, she hardly ever attends class and it's exactly the reason Beca's in this utterly chaotic situation in the first place. She thinks she might actually be angry if it wasn't for the fact that she's positive not a single iota of her being could ever be angry with Chloe. 

It isn't her fault, really - or maybe it is, she doesn't really know whose fault it is that her stomach leaps whenever Chloe walks into a room, but she wants to scream at them. Maybe not scream at them, her thoughts amend themselves almost immediately - she can't scream at anyone, maybe just give them a few choice words instead but the point is moot. She's so far screwed where Chloe Beale is concerned that Beca's almost amazed she can get through a day being anywhere near the girl, but she does - constantly, considering they share four of their six classes together.

"This is so unfair," the groan that follows is almost pathetic, or maybe closer to awkwardly pornographic and Beca is entirely mortified when a snort startles her out of her thoughts and she finds herself face to face with Chloe. 

She coughs - because really, what is an appropriate response to moaning in front of someone you desperately want to do _something_ to. She settles for adjusting her glasses as she tries to gain some of the composure she's thrown away three seconds into contact with Chloe and it takes her a minute before she can, but she does meet Chloe's eyes and damn it - that has to count for something. Her thoughts are racing almost faster than she can comprehend and she can't even form a sentence that doesn't make her sound like a complete moron and Chloe takes away all chance of her making the first move when she grudgingly tosses her history book on the table between them and grumbles, "I just don't get it," she admits this quietly, like it's a terrible, terrible secret she can hardly bring herself to divulge and Beca finds herself leaning in to hear, already trapped in Chloe's ever present gravity. 

Beca smiles awkwardly, she can't even speak around Chloe - which is really strike one on the tutoring front. She takes a breath and cracks the book open to the chapter they're currently working on, something about WWI, she's really struggling with the subject matter in the face of Chloe's perfume, which is making her head go fuzzy already. "That's okay, just take me through it. Whatever you're having the most trouble with," She smiles encouragingly and hopes it doesn't make Chloe want to hit her, or threaten her or any manner of things she'd been known to do before.

Chloe raises an eyebrow and points at the heading of the chapter, "Is 'all of it' too broad an answer?" She doesn't look at all sheepish as she speaks and Beca finds herself suddenly remembering one of the things about Chloe that she's so very fond of, the fact that she never seems affected by anything and maybe it's because she herself is affected by absolutely everything that she enjoys it so much, but it's so refreshing it makes her head spin again and she stares at the header for a moment before she shakes her head.

"No, that's okay too. It just means you'll be spending a lot more time with me," she answers simply, too focused on finding her own notes on the chapter to notice Chloe's expression for more than a second. Her chest burns a little at the sight, Chloe looks like she's just swallowed a lemon and Beca wants to curl up or run away or any manner of things that would get her away from the girl sitting dangerously close to her. 

It's ridiculous, really, how nervous being around Chloe makes her. It's like she'd fallen back into middle school, when she was awkward - well, more awkward - and sported braces and taped glasses and ever present scrapes on her knees. She huffs softly, a short rush of breath that seems to catch Chloe's attention, "What the hell's wrong with you, Mitchell?" 

Beca's not sure whether to be offended by Chloe's bluntness or baffled by the sheer fact that she actually knows her last name. It seemed almost too good to be true, although it wasn't like this situation was a fairy tale to begin with and Beca was hardly used to people that weren't teachers talking to her in the first place, let alone someone like Chloe, who's friends always made it a point to terrorize her whenever she walked through the halls - she was tiny, she reasoned, they couldn't see her. "N-nothing," she stammers and collects herself within a second, "Nothing's wrong, I'm just trying to figure out how best to teach you this." 

Chloe hums lowly, dubiously and Beca almost groans again. It's going to be a hell of a week.

* * *

 

"She's really hot, right? That's the Chloe you're talking about, the really hot one?"

Beca's hand finds its way to her forehead almost immediately and she glares at Jesse, although she's not sure how threatening she really looks when she's so much shorter than him and her favorite checkered suspenders don't exactly scream 'badass'. She wants to argue, wants to convince Jesse that that's not the right person, that he couldn't possibly be thinking of the girl that haunts Beca's thoughts more thoroughly than any other person she's ever met, but she doesn't. She wants to, but it seems pointless. Jesse's going to be entirely focused on the hotness factor and she'll be surprised if he hears anything she says after she inevitably agrees with him.

She cuffs him on the shoulder, lightly, and frowns. "She's not- I mean- yes, that's," she blushes prettily and Jesse laughs, "I'm taking that as a definite yes, thanks Bec!" He continues to snicker until she hits him again, a little harder and he pouts - laughter forgone in favor of an expression that makes him look like a kicked puppy.

"Don't give me that face, Swanson, you brought it on yourself." She grumbles, crossing her arms reflexively as her thoughts stray as they have for the last three days since the beginning of Chloe's tutoring, to the girl herself. It's not like she minds them, but really, they are getting to be a bit ridiculous. She thinks about a lot of things, the fact that she admires Chloe and the way she never cares about anything, or the way her jeans always fit her in a way that would be mouth watering if it didn't mortify Beca to the degree that it always did. She wants to sit down and have a conversation with Chloe, something normal, about what she likes to do for fun or when she had decided that getting her lip pierced was a good idea or why she carried around a pack of cigarettes in her back pocket but Beca had never actually seen her smoke one. 

It was official, she was completely - or at least mildly - intrigued by Chloe Beale and she's not sure there's going to be any avoiding it, but God, does she want to.

She doesn't want to look at Chloe and smile without thinking, or glance up while they're reading together and wonder what her lips would feel like if she could muster up the courage to kiss her, and she especially doesn't want to continue to wonder why she wants to know everything there is to know about Chloe and her stupid ripped jeans and her stupid bright blue eyes.

* * *

 

"How's torture with Mitchell treating you, Chlo?" Aubrey's voice is familiar and teasing and everything Chloe had always associated it with being and she smirks as she rolls over and stares at Aubrey from her current place on her best friend's floor. Her attention had been entirely focused on the assignment Beca had given her to get through the first quarter of the chapter they were covering and she was doing a damn good job - by her standards - at least until she got bored and started doodling in the margins of her notes. 

"It's really not that bad," she mutters quietly after another moment of doodling. 

Aubrey snorts and pokes her at the base of her spine firmly, "Yeah, right. You're spending three hours a day with Mitchell. She's the fucking Queen of the nerds, Chlo. It's actually painful, how much of a dweeb she is." She's anything but sweet and Chloe almost winces at her description of Beca, an immediate protest bubbling up in her throat. 

"I swear, Bree. She's actually kind of cool," she sighs lowly, "She's the only one who can actually make me understand this," she gestures at her textbook vaguely, "Bullshit. So, just - fuck off about it, okay? She's not that bad." 

She forces her attention back to her textbook and she can _feel_ the stare Aubrey is directing at the back of her head, "Whatever you say, dude. She's brainwashing you. With her weird nerd powers." 

Chloe snorts and looks up at Aubrey with a smirk, "You're a fucking weirdo, Bree." Aubrey laughs and nudges her with her foot and the next thing she knows they're wrestling on the floor and Chloe's sitting on Aubrey's back and laughing triumphantly and everything's a little less confusing for a few minutes. 

She tries to ignore the thoughts that make her wonder what Beca would do if she tickled her, if she would squeal or blush or fog up her stupidly adorable taped glasses or get tangled into her equally stupid suspenders. She wonders what Beca's laugh sounds like and hates the way the thought makes her stomach flip and her hands get a little damp. Fuck Beca Mitchell, she thinks, fuck her and her stupidly adorable glasses and the way her eyebrows creased when she concentrated and the way she hadn't given up on Chloe even though they'd been working on their history chapter for almost the entire week and Chloe was still having trouble grasping the material. It wasn't her fault though - she refused to admit that it was, not when Beca was so cute and so distracting and especially not when Chloe was painfully conscious of the fact that she had been just as cute and just as distracting when they'd met each other in the fourth grade.

"Fuck," she mumbles it under her breath, lowly enough that there's no way Aubrey can hear her over the grunts and shrill pleas to let her get up that her best friend is making. 

She's so fucking screwed.

* * *

 

Chloe's first test since their tutoring sessions began comes back with a C+ and she's so over the moon about it that Beca doesn't have the heart to tell her that she could probably do a lot better if they really sat down and worked things out a little more thoroughly. She especially doesn't want to mention it when Chloe flashes her a smile so blinding that Beca's positive someone's slipped the colony of butterflies in her stomach a kilo of cocaine. Granted, the smile doesn't last long and Beca's almost disappointed when the only other thing Chloe does for the entirety of class is send her an appreciative nod and then class is over and she's trying to find Jesse in the crowd outside of the history building and keeps finding Chloe instead. 

Chloe, who's idea of punk for the day is wearing a tank top with a raccoon printed on the front and a leather jacket and another pair of the skinny jeans that make Beca want to drool; she's barely conscious of the fact that Chloe's deep in what looks like a very serious conversation with Aubrey Posen that is punctuated by a glance back and a long stare that leaves Beca almost entirely out of breath before:

"She likes me a lot. It's weird." 

And Beca smiles a little, because that's probably the closest thing to a compliment Chloe's given her since she decided black was her new favorite color and tattoos were her new jewelry and all at once Beca is aware of everything again.

She's so completely, utterly, monumentally screwed. 


End file.
